Wednesday, November 1, 2006

From The Princess of Cozytown, 1922. Originally published in St. Nicholas.

Oh, once - oh, once, dears and ducks, there was a beautiful Princess who
could not dance! Think of it! All the dancing masters in the kingdom
and in all the kingdoms for miles round could do nothing with her. They
came singly and doubly and then all together, and counted one, two, one,
two, three, and twirled, and bobbed, and bowed, and stamped, and swayed
in and out, and whirled round like tops; and the Court Musicians
twanged and banged and thumped, tum-tum, tiddy-um-tum, tum-tum,
tiddy-um-tum, until their ruffled collars wilted, and their cheeks
puffed out like red balloons, - but still she couldn't dance.

The King tore his hair out by the handful - he didn't have much either;
and the Queen wept into her flowered handkerchief, while the dancing
masters explained this and then that, but the Princess sadly shook her
head instead of her foot, and there was an end of it. So in all the land
there could be no dancing, no Court balls or frolics, nor any music
even, because music made the other folks dance and the Prin-cess appear
ridiculous.

And oh, my dears, that kingdom grew pokier than snuff! Faces grew long
and dour, and visitors to the realm most mighty scarce. And yet this
Princess was really bewitchingly enchanting, her hair all tumbling
golden curls, and her eyes, sweethearts, as blue as the darkest part of
the sky, and her cheeks as pink as the little clouds at sunset, while
her feet and hands were the tiniest ever. Oh, you would have loved her
to pieces! Even her name was a dancy sort of name, for it was Dianidra.

Well, poor Dianidra grew every day more thin and sad, because all the
Court Ladies who could dance were exceedingly unkind to her. I shouldn't
be surprised if they pinched her now and then. And the King was so
vexed that a real Princess couldn't dance, that quite often he boxed her
ears. Oh, he was a crab of a King! When Dianidra went near her mother,
the Queen covered her face with her handkerchief and shrieked for her
smelling-salts, and moaned: "A Princess who cannot dance will never
marry. How disgraceful! How terrible! Unhappy me!" and a good bit more
that I have not time to tell you.

So Dianidra used to wander off into the garden by herself and try to
puzzle it out. She used to work it out with a paper and pencil like
this: 2 steps plus 2 steps, and 1 bow plus 1 dip = the minuet. And 4
times 3 steps plus 1 turn, and 2 swings plus 1 slide = the Court glide.
Then - then, because she never could put the puzzle together, she would
throw herself down on the ground and weep, until the flowers thought
surely that spring had come. And, dear hearts, have you guessed why?
Don't think she was bewitched. Not a bit. Let me tell you the way of it.
The proud old King and the weepy old Queen and the stupid old
dancing-masters had been so busy telling the Princess how to dance that
they all completely forgot to tell her what dancing was. So Dianidra had
it all mixed up with her arithmetic and spelling lessons. And of course
she couldn't dance, because the wisest person in the world couldn't
dance with his head.

Things grew worse and worse, and pretty bad, I can tell you. And one
day, after the King had been unusually crabbish, and the Queen most
awfully weepish, and the Court Ladies outrageously crossish, Dianidra
decided to run away. She waited until the gate-keeper was snoring, then
she stood on her tippy-toes, turned the great golden key, and slipped
out into the world. She ran and ran, down the King's highway, of course,
crying all the time so hard that she couldn't see where she was going.
And first thing you know, plump-p-p! bump-p-p! she had run into an old
lady and tumbled her head over heels in the road.

"Sugar and molasses, my dear!" cried the old lady pleasantly. "I was just hoping something would happen."

At this, Dianidra, who had expected nothing less than a box on the ears,
stopped crying and looked at the old lady curiously. Her eyes were
brown and dancy, and her cheeks, 'though withered and old, were red as
apples. In her shabby bonnet and dress she looked younger than Dianidra
herself.

"Well, well!" she chuckled, picking up her things. "Who are you, my pretty?"

"I'm Dianidra, the Princess who cannot dance," the Princess answered, hanging her head.

"Hoity-toity!" exclaimed the old lady. "Is that why you're crying on the King's highway?"

"Oh," sobbed Dianidra, "if I could only learn to dance!"

"Come here, child," said the old lady; and putting her head to Dianidra's heart, she listened long and knowingly.

"Yes, it's there," she muttered to herself. "It's there." All of which
was very puzzling to the Princess. "Now, what do you know about
dancing?"

"Let me see," said Dianidra, puckering up her brow and counting on her
fingers. "Two turns, plus five slides, plus six steps, plus two swings,
divided by a curtsey equals - Oh, dear, what does that equal? What does
it equal?"

At that, what do you suppose happened? The old lady burst into laughter -
and I mean it, really. Her bonnet tumbled off, and she laughed and
laughed; and her hair tumbled down, and she laughed and laughed; her
cape flew away, and still she kept laughing; till finally, in an awful
chuckle, she just disappeared; and out of the laughter stepped the most
beautiful fairy that you can imagine - with shimmery wings and smiley
eyes. Dianidra was so surprised that she laughed a little bit, herself.

"That's right!" said the fairy. "Before you can learn to dance, you must
learn to laugh! You must laugh with your lips, and then with your
heart, and then with your feet, Dianidra, for that's what dancing is.
And I'm going to send you to the most wonderful dancing masters in the
world. Walk straight ahead between these tall trees till you come to
yonder gray stone, and on the other side you will see your first
dancing-master. He will tell you where to find the others. Good-bye,
little Princess. Before the next sunrise you will be the most beautiful
dancer in all the ten kingdoms."

Then, sweethearts, the fairy kissed Dianidra and flew up, up, out of
sight. And I might tell you that the fairy's name was Happiness, if you
have not already guessed it.

Something about the fairy kiss kept the Princess laughing softly all the
way along between the tall trees until she came to the gray stone. She
peeked 'round it curiously, and there, sure enough, was her first
dancing master, a rippling, racing, merry little brook.

"Lean down, Dianidra," called the brook. And Dianidra, obeying, was
drawn gently into its arms, and danced away with her over the stones,
singing:

You never could guess how pleasant it was dancing with the brook. The
sunbeams came, too, and joined in. But finally the brook whispered to
the Princess that on the top of the next hill another dancing master was
waiting. So Dianidra sprang gaily up the bank, shaking the diamond
drops of water out of her sunny locks and wringing out her dress.
And straightway she began running and gliding as easily as the brook,
singing all the time the bit of a song he had taught her. When she had
come to the top of the hill, there, sure enough, was her second dancing
master. 'Twas the south wind. He seized Dianidra's hands and spun her
'round in a hundred gay circles; and she bowed and swayed as gracefully
as you have seen the flowers do when the south wind dances with them.

"Oh, off with a rush, now sway, now stay,
Now bend and bow, and again away!"

whispered the south wind in her ear. And away and away they danced, and
Dianidra thought she would never weary of it. Over the flower-splashed
hill they swept, down and down to the edge of the sea. And there the
south wind left her to learn something from this, her last dancing
master.
The sea rushed toward Dianidra with his hundred dancing waves, and,
catching her up in his mighty arms, drew her out to where the swells
rose and fell with majestic rhythm. The dance of the sea, dear hearts,
was the most beautiful of all. First he held her curled in the hollow of
a giant swell, then tossed her lightly as foam on the rising crest,
where she floated gently to and fro. Now with a rush a great wave ran
with her merrily up the sand, teaching her the most wonderful curtsey,
the curtsey the waves have been dropping to the shore for years and
hundreds of years.
After she had been dancing with the sea for a long, long time, he
brought up from his treasure-chest a wonderful coral chain, and clasped
it round her neck; and he wove her a crown of sea-weed and pearly
sea-flowers, and, with a last caress, set her high upon the beach. So
happy had Dianidra been, dancing with these wonderful dancing masters,
that she hadn't noticed that the sun had slipped down behind the hill.
It was night, and the moon came up out of the sea, and smiled at the
runaway Princess dancing over the sands. Her satin dress was torn and
dripping, but she was more beautiful now than ever before, because her
eyes were laughing, her lips were laughing, her heart was laughing; but
more than all else, her flying feet were laughing!
It chanced that a most royal palace stood on that beach, and the
Princess, running and gliding like the brook, and swaying and bending as
the south wind, and curtseying and dipping like the sea, danced up to
the golden gates, which were open, straight into the gaily lighted
ball-room! Gorgeous Princesses, and Queens, and Ladies of high degree
were dancing with Princes, and Kings, and Gentlemen of high degree, for
it was the royalest ball of the year, and from the east and west, from
the north and south, from all the ten kingdoms in fact, this sprightly
and gallant company had gathered.
When Dianidra swept lightly into their midst, dears and ducks, it was
the most surprised company ever. The musicians all stopped thumping and
banging, and, with their cheeks still puffed out and their hands
upraised, stared and stared. And the gorgeous Princesses, and Queens,
and the Ladies of high degree stopped right in the midst of a wonderful
figure, and, with their satin slippers daintily pointed to take the next
step, stared and stared. And the Princes, and Kings, and the Gentlemen
of high degree, with their courtly backs bent for the deep bow, stopped
and stared and stared; and my goody! they stared the hardest of all. But
Dianidra danced merrily on.
Just about as long as you could count twenty they all stared, then -
"CRASH!!!!" went the music, and started up the most marvelous booming, -
quite like the roar of the sea, - and the most royal of the Princes
unbent his back, and ran lightly up to Dianidra, and away they whirled
down the center of the room. Then - then I am sure you would have
laughed at what happened next - because all the Kings and Princes and
Gentlemen of high degree were so anxious to dance with Dianidra that
they trod upon each other's toes; and in the scramble they lost their
crowns, and they shoved and pushed each other quite terribly, without
ever once saying "Beg pardon," or anything like that, while the
Princesses, and Queens, and the Ladies of high degree grew red and then
white by turns, and stamped first one foot and then the other, and
whispered behind their fans, and glared at the dancing Princess through
their gold lorgnettes. No wonder! Dianidra, in her torn frock and
seaweed crown and coral necklace, was more beautiful than all of them
together; and who, after dancing with her, cared to dance with any one
of them?
So she danced with each of the royal Gentlemen, but oftenest, as you are
already supposing, with the most royal Prince; and pretty soon they
danced out into the castle gardens, and perhaps she told him all about
her strange dancing masters - but that I cannot say. But after a while
the Prince ordered his most royal carriage, and the fifty white horses
galloped over hill and dale to the palace of Dianidra's father.
There they found the crabbish King tearing out what little hair was left
him, while the Queen, nearly smothered with smelling-salts, was weeping
more bitterly than ever, and sobbing: "A Princess who could not dance
was better than no Princess at all!" and a good bit more that I haven't
time to tell you. But when they saw Dianidra, they ceased their
crabbishness and weepishness straight off, and when the Prince on his
bended knee asked for the hand of the Princess, they were overjoyed and
delighted - which is the way of Kings and Queens.
So Dianidra and the Prince were married in a year and a day, and the
wedding was the most gorgeous you could imagine. As the fairy had
promised, Dianidra was the most wonderful dancer in all the ten
kingdoms, for in her dancing was the ripple of the brook, the swaying of
the trees and flowers in the south wind, and the mystery of the sea.
All through the years she and the most royal Prince danced together
merrily, and so lived happily ever after. That, sweethearts, was the way
of it.

THE FORGETFUL POET

By Ruth Plumly Thompson
Originally published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger,March 31, 1918.

The Puzzle Corner
The Forgetful Poet's verses as he intended to write them last week are
given below. He got some of his words in the wrong places, didn't he?
With line and rod upon my back
And little worms in cans,
I started out to catch some fish,
I'd wisely laid my plans.
I threw my line into a stream--
It caught upon a branch,
The hook flew back and bit me -
Took two handkerchiefs to staunch
The blood--I now untangled all
The knots and cast again.
My foot slipped and somehow I've felt
Oh, far from well, since then!
Why is an egg like one of the English poets?
Why is it unwise to tell secrets in a cornfield?